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Post by Michael John on Nov 12, 2008 10:52:28 GMT -5
I'm packing-up and headed down by Shoshone to find some jasper and/or agate that a local told me about last night. I'm not sure how this little expedition is gonna go, but it's worth a shot. If I don't find it I'll probably go up to The Blue Mule since the Chrysocolla is selling like hotcakes these days. It's gonna be relatively warm today, so I want to take advantage of it while I can.
I'm taking my camera, so I'll have pics for ya's later today.
Happy Trails!
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Post by Michael John on Nov 13, 2008 2:18:01 GMT -5
WOW ... what a STRANGE day.
Well, I didn't find the jasper/agate site ... bad directions. It was supposed to be somewhere off of hwy 178, but i saw no sign of the landmark I was told to look-for. I stopped-into three different places in Shoshone and asked about the landmark and any possible places to rockhound, but nobody knew the landmark and the only place for rockhounding that anyone knew about was the Opal beds out by Tecopa (over-hounded waste of time).
Well, I just really wasn't up for the hike up to the mine, and I was bumbed because I was really up for this little adventure ... so I decided to go check-out a place that I've been researching a bit recently, where I knew there would be a possibility of finding a little sumpn-sumpn.
It was quite a drive from Shoshone, and I was a little concerned about my old pickup truck making it through the expedition ahead. I wasn't too concerned about the highway miles, it was the many miles of bad Mojave desert "dirt roads" that I was worried about. When I turned off of the pavement and onto the first "dirt road" I had to travel, I didn't even get a mile before I had a NEW experience ... a BLM Ranger going the opposite way! I saw the truck, I did a double-take at the driver, we both slowed down, and I backed-up to talk to him. WHAT A COOL GUY! I told him I was out there trying to do some rockhounding, where I was headed, and asked him if he knew anything about the possibility of finding anything out there. He said he didn't have any idea, but that nobody ever goes out there except to look at flowers. We sat there and talked for about 15 minutes about the area we were in, and Death Valley, and The Cadys, and he was surprised at how much I knew about it all LOL. Turns out he was a geology major in college. At the end of the conversation, he told me to have fun out there and gave me this big grin ... hmmm.
So, now I'm driving down this desert dirt road. It's nothing like what's shown on Google Earth, and nothing like the couple of stories I'd read on the internet by people who'd been out there before. It was actually better than some of the roads in Pahrump!
Well, I finally made my destination. I didn't find diddly for about 10 minutes, then "Oooo what's that" and "Wow, that's massive", and "OMFG". After about a half hour, it occurred to me that the geology major BLM Ranger didn't know anything about this when we started talking ... then the big grin before we parted ways. Hmmm.
I stayed and hounded until dark, then drove out with no problems, and got home safely. Only cost me $20 in gas, too ... sure glad the price of gas went down!
I've purposely not told where I went because it's a cool place and I don't want any chance of it coming-up in searches. If you're curious about where I was, a good clue is that I'm pretty sure that some of the material I found is mxyxrxixcxkxixtxe (take out the Xs), but most of it was agate. Another clue is that I was only about a mile from a big double gate. If you figure it out (not hard), please don't mention it on the forum.
Now for the bad news ... I forgot my friggin camera ... and I'm really kickin myself for it. However, I'll have some pics of the material up tomorrow. I'm going to break-out the saw, too, so we'll all get a good look at this stuff. Can't wait!
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Post by Woodyrock on Nov 13, 2008 2:57:11 GMT -5
Don't you just love these adventures 'hounding when you are going my word of mouth directions? It is still great to hear that you found some OMFG material. Your neck of the woods , uh back up one there, you do not have trees, and shrubs, and mud covering up all the rock. My wife, and I had a look for opal at Zebriski Station two years ago, but only found some nice agate like the Tecopa material. It must be so wonderful to just walk about and pick up material...as opposed to our method of digging in mud most of the time.
Nice experience of meeting a friendly BLM dude instead of one that wants you to go away.
Woody
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Post by Michael John on Nov 14, 2008 1:46:50 GMT -5
Oddly enough, I talked to another guy today who gave me word-of-mouth directions to some chalcedony and "some brown crystals" down near Shoshone, and also gave me vague directions to a place to collect Turquoise which is not claimed out by the Sandy Valley area. I'm not exactly ready to jump in the truck and head out there, though. LOL
The desert presents it's own problems for hounding. Climbing a mountain when it's 110 degrees is NOT fun, and the winter is still pretty cold here, too. As far as mud ... you aint SEEN mud. Out here we have what's called "poof dirt", which is a non-compacted dirt, several inches thick. It's caused by the frequent high winds blowing the dirt around. Once it gets wet, you DON'T step in it. After it rains, forget about hounding for a few days. Then there's just plain old rocks, which are everywhere on the ground. When you walk through the desert, walking on the rocks all day is murder on your feet, or even for just a couple hours. As far as vegetation, a big problem is mesquite bushes. They're everywhere, and they blend-in with other desert plants. They have nasty thorns that rip right through jeans and cut your legs, and if you drive near plants, you have to be real careful because the the thorns penetrate tires' side walls, giving you a flat and rendering the tire unrepairable. Then there was the time that we didn't bring enough water when we were out hounding in the summer ... I'd never want to go through that again. Hmmm and THEN there was the time that I shaved my head and got it sunburned while out hounding ... now THAT was terrible! So, no, I wouldn't say it's all so easy here. LMAO
I unloaded the truck today and briefly got to look at all the stuff I collected, but I had too many other things to do today that required my attention. Hopefully I'll get to cut some up and take some pics tomorrow.
So where's this nice Tecopa agate that you mentioned??? I've never heard of any agate in the immediate Tecopa area. Just south of Tecopa, there's Pet Palm Wood in Sperry Wash, near the date farm, but I haven't bothered with it yet because it's been a very popular hounding site for decades, and I hear that now you could wander the wash all day and find nothing.
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Post by Woodyrock on Nov 14, 2008 2:57:52 GMT -5
I am not really a stranger to the desert, so know about those thorns, cholla that jumps on to motorcycle riders, and not enough water. Every area has some kind of disadvantage to hounding. BTW, being a nearly bald redhead, I do know what misery you went through with a sunburned head, firsthand of course. The agate, was found where the opal was supposed to be in the light grey clay hills. Years back, I did Hare and hound racing, and filled my tires with the leakstop goop. You NEVER want to blow out a tire on a fast moving bike with that goop in it! It took me hours to get the non skid finish off the bike, and my leathers.
Woody
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Post by Michael John on Nov 14, 2008 4:01:37 GMT -5
Hmmm, I'll have to check that out. What's the agate look like? Mostly red? Got pics?
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Post by Michael John on Nov 14, 2008 23:48:03 GMT -5
Well, I set-up the saw today and cut into some of my finds. As always, there were a few duds, but all-in-all I got a lot of very cool stuff. What I thought was agate I think is more of a jasp-agate. It's some pretty unusual stuff, with a lot of pinkish tone in it. Again, I was gonna take pics, but I ended-up cutting right up to dark. I'll definately take pics of the rocks and the little slabs tomorrow.
About half of what I collected was "jasp-agate", and the rest was "interesting stuff", like big chunks of quartz, a couple of wierd purple things, a white rock that looks like a brain, and all sorts of oddities. What I thought might be Mxyxrxixcxkxixtxe, wasn't.
Here's the sweet and sour ... I did some reading-up on the place that I went (very little info on it) and found-out that I was CLOSE, but not close enough. If I'd driven about 5 more miles down the road, I would have hit a collecting spot that's THE BOMB, but hardly known. So, even though I'm pretty happy with the outcome of my little adventure, the next time is going to be even WAY better.
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